Dirty, Dangerous… and Difficult? Regional Perspectives on a Nuclear South Korea
| Published date | 01 March 2025 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/23477970241298756 |
| Author | Alexander M. Hynd |
| Date | 01 March 2025 |
Research Article
Dirty, Dangerous…
and Difficult? Regional
Perspectives on a
Nuclear South Korea
Alexander M. Hynd1
Abstract
Domestic support for a nuclear South Korea is increasingly noticeable—with
envisioned pathways including the return of US tactical nuclear weapons, a
NATO-style nuclear sharing agreement and an indigenous nuclear programme.
Existing accounts largely frame the issue in terms of Washington-Seoul alliance
management and a single defining North Korean threat, focusing on questions
of ‘why’ South Korea should/should not pursue nuclear options. In this article,
I instead reframe the debate as a broader regional security issue, investigating how
South Korea’s Indo-Pacific neighbours might view and respond to the activation
of these nuclear pathways. Drawing on interviews and exchanges with nuclear
and regional security experts, this article provides a preliminary and tentative
sketch of the perspectives of foreign policy elites in six Indo-Pacific states: the
United States, China, Japan, India, Indonesia and Australia; and also Taiwan.
I conclude the article by offering further policy-relevant insights into how regional
states can act, both individually and collectively, to lessen the prospects of a
nuclear South Korea.
Keywords
South Korea, nuclear weapons, non-proliferation, disarmament, Indo-Pacific
Introduction
In January 2023 South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol publicly stated that, in
response to North Korea’s nuclear programme, ‘[i]t’s possible... our country will
introduce (US) tactical nuclear weapons or build them on our own’ (Choe, 2023).
Journal of Asian Security
and International Affairs
12(1) 54–80, 2025
© The Author(s) 2024
Article reuse guidelines:
in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india
DOI: 10.1177/23477970241298756
journals.sagepub.com/home/aia
1 Non-resident James A. Kelly Korea Fellow, Pacific Forum, Honolulu, HI, USA
Corresponding author:
Alexander M. Hynd, Non-resident James A. Kelly Korea Fellow, Pacific Forum, Pacific Forum, 1003
Bishop Street, Pauahi Tower Suite 1150 Honolulu, HI 96813, USA.
E-mail: alexandermhynd@gmail.com
Hynd 55
For some international observers, these comments were ‘surprising’, ‘alarming’,
and ‘reflect the need for stronger assurances from the United States’ (Rajagopalan,
2023; Rai, 2023; Mohan, 2023). But for others President Yoon’s remarks—later
walked back—were merely the latest elevation of long running domestic debates
over nuclear proliferation, whose origins can be traced at least as far as a failed
clandestine 1970s-era nuclear weapons programme (see Hong, 2023). In this
article, I take a regional approach to South Korea’s domestic nuclear debates,
asking how this issue is viewed by a range of Indo-Pacific great power and
secondary states, and offering some initial insights into how these actors might
constrain or embolden South Korean attempts to exercise its nuclear options.
A 2022 Chicago Council on Global Affairs public opinion survey found that
56% of South Koreans favour the re-deployment in US tactical nuclear weapons
on South Korean soil, and 71% support the development of an independent South
Korean nuclear arsenal (Dalton et al., 2022). North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic
missile weapons programmes and posture are undoubtedly one major driver
shaping these debates. But other nuclear states have also increased the salience of
these weapons in the region. China is rapidly increasing its nuclear stockpile
beyond a current estimated 400 warheads, and at current rates ‘will likely field a
stockpile of about 1500 warheads by... 2035’ (U.S. Department of Defense, 2022,
ix, 94). Meanwhile, Russia has employed a range of ‘implicit and explicit nuclear
threats’ during its invasion of Ukraine, and the United States has directed its own
strong nuclear rhetoric towards the Korean Peninsula (Blake, 2017; Williams
et al., 2024). Moreover, there are concerns in South Korea about the effectiveness
of the US security guarantee, and additional status-seeking motivations in play
(Kim 2023, p. 416; Yeo, 2023). Consequently, South Korea’s otherwise typically
cautious national security elites are increasingly demonstrating their interest in
pushing towards the activation of nuclear pathways.
Much existing English language analysis and scholarship of South Korea’s
domestic nuclear debates are limited in three key respects. First, it frames the
issue exclusively as an alliance management problem that can be solved by the
United States activating the correct combination of carrots and sticks. But this
unilateral focus on Washington underestimates the degree to which the region is
moving towards multipolarity—empowering a broader range of states. Second,
there is a widely held assumption that supporters of a nuclear South Korea are
motivated entirely by concerns over the North Korean security threat or attempts
to win concessions from Washington. Here, the theoretical assumption is one that
discounts a broader range of security and status concerns, and the empirical
assumption is that the United States alone is capable of influencing outcomes.
Finally, much existing literature centres questions of ‘why’ Seoul should or should
not pursue nuclear options, which gives little insight into the practical challenges
and responses to real-world attempts to pursue nuclear pathways.
Responding to these limitations, in this article I reframe the issue by examining
questions of ‘how’ South Korean nuclear pathway activation might take place,
taking an explicitly regional approach that investigates the preferences and likely
responses of those great power and secondary states in the Indo-Pacific that may
have a stake in peninsula security outcomes. By centring regional perspectives on
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